The Marianne North Gallery
Marianne North Gallery at Kew
After a successful exhibition of her paintings in a London gallery in 1879, Marianne conceived the idea of presenting them to the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She also generously offered to provide a suitable building in which to display them.
Her architect friend James Fergusson designed a T-shaped building with a verandah around the outside, which mirrored her feelings for India. Its design is also reminiscent of a Greek temple, satisfying Fergusson's own ideas on an intense level of natural lighting from large clerestory windows high above the paintings.
On one corner is the single storey studio for the artist's use and on another, a two-storey 'flat', now disused, intended by Marianne North as accommodation for a resident gardener. There are two double-height gallery spaces in which the paintings are displayed.
Miss North took charge of the hanging herself, arranging them in geographical order over a dado of 246 vertical strips of different timbers.
Astonishingly, Miss North then embarked on yet further journeys. Just two months after the opening of her Gallery, she travelled to South Africa, where many more paintings were undertaken. In 1883, she was in the Seychelles and in 1884, despite ill-health, she was painting plants in Chile.
These additional works were added to the Gallery and today the walls are virtually solid with paintings - there are 832 of her oil paintings all told, showing over 900 species of plants - a unique memorial to an equally unique woman.